Mayor of Detroit; Michigan

Michael Edward "Mike" Duggan (born July 15, 1958) is an American attorney, prosecutor, and businessman, currently serving as mayor of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected mayor in 2013, receiving national attention in part because he is the first white mayor of the majority-black city since Roman Gribbs' tenure in the early 1970s, when Detroit was not yet a majority African-American city. He received 52% of the primary vote as a write-in candidate, then 55% of the vote in the mayoral run-off in November 2013.

Duggan graduated from Detroit Catholic Central High School. He then received a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1980, followed by a J.D. degree from its law school in 1983. A Democrat, Duggan was an appointed and elected official in Wayne County, Michigan beginning in 1986 as Wayne County's assistant corporation counsel. He was deputy County Executive from 1987 to 2001 under Edward H. McNamara and was elected prosecutor in 2000.

Beginning in 2004, Duggan was president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). He was in this position when the formerly nonprofit DMC was sold to publicly traded Vanguard Health Systems in 2010.

He resigned his position at the DMC in 2012 and moved from the suburb of Livonia to the city of Detroit, to run for the office of mayor. However, he failed to qualify for the ballot because in turning in his petition ahead of the filing deadline, it became a filing less than a year after establishing residency in the city; if he had waited two more weeks to file, which was still in time for the filing deadline, he would have qualified. He mounted a write-in campaign, receiving enough votes in the August primary election for his name to be placed on the ballot for the general election in November, along with second-place finisher Benny Napoleon.

Duggan is the first white mayor of the majority-black city of Detroit since Roman Gribbs, who served from 1970 to 1974. Duggan received 52% of the primary vote as a write-in candidate, then 55% of the vote in the mayoral run-off in November 2013. He ran with the campaign slogan, "Every neighborhood has a future," and development.  on a platform of financial turnaround, crime reduction and economic 
Mike Duggan, who ran on his financial rescue of the city’s largest hospital system, beat Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon 55 percent to 45 percent with 98 percent of precincts reporting, the Detroit News reported. Both candidates are Democrats. The city of Detroit is 83 percent African American.

Many times during the Detroit mayoral race, the idea of Duggan victoriously addressing supporters from the podium seemed improbable at best. In June, Duggan was found to be ineligible and blocked from Detroit’s primary ballot after another candidate, Tom Barrow, challenged the date he filed for residency after moving to Detroit from a nearby suburb.

Duggan briefly quit the race before announcing he would mount a write-in campaign. He beat the field of candidates, including Napoleon, by at least 20,000 votes. The validity of his write-in votes was challenged numerous times in court.

During the pivotal day for Detroit, the U.S. Department of Justice was on hand to monitor the election to ensure the Voting Rights Act was upheld. The DOJ was also present in Hamtramck, an enclave of Detroit, two counties in Ohio and one in New York.

Duggan is married to Lori Maher, and they have four adult children.





Detroit

Detroit, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan, the fourth-largest city in the Midwest and the largest city on the United States–Canada border. It is the seat of Wayne County, the most populous county in the state. Detroit's metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the fourteenth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the second-largest in the Midwestern United States (behind Chicago).

The Detroit–Windsor area, a commercial link straddling the Canada–U.S. border, has a total population of about 5.7 million. The Detroit metropolitan region holds roughly one-half of Michigan's population. Detroit is a major port on the Detroit River, a strait that connects the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Detroit Metropolitan Airport is among the most important hubs in the United States. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest economic region in the Midwest, behind Chicago, and the thirteenth-largest in the United States.

Detroit was founded on July 24, 1701 by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and a party of settlers. With expansion of the automobile industry, the Detroit area emerged as a significant metropolitan region within the United States in the early 20th century, when the city became the fourth-largest in the country for a period. In the 1950s and 1960s, expansion continued with construction of a regional freeway system.

Due to industrial restructuring and loss of jobs in the auto industry, Detroit lost considerable population from the late 20th century to present. Between 2000 and 2010 the city's population fell by 25 percent, changing its ranking from the nation's 10th-largest city to 18th. In 2010, the city had a population of 713,777, more than a 60 percent drop from a peak population of over 1.8 million at the 1950 census. This resulted from suburbanization, industrial restructuring, and the decline of Detroit's auto industry. Following the shift of population and jobs to its suburbs or other states or nations, the city has focused on becoming the metropolitan region's employment and economic center.

The erstwhile rapid growth of the city left a globally unique stock of architectural monuments and historic places of the first half of the 20th century, with many of them falling into disrepair or torn down since the 1960s. Conservation efforts managed to save many architectural pieces since the 2000s and allowed several large-scale revitalisations. Downtown Detroit has held an increased role as a cultural destination in the 21st century, with the restoration of several historic theatres and entertainment venues, new sports stadiums, and a riverfront revitalization project. More recently, the population of Downtown Detroit, Midtown Detroit, and a handful of other neighborhoods has increased. Some other neighborhoods remain distressed, with extensive abandonment of properties.

The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, declared a financial emergency for the city in March 2013, appointing an emergency manager. On July 18, 2013, Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history. It was declared bankrupt by Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on December 3, 2013; he cited its $18.5 billion debt and declared that negotiations with its thousands of creditors were unfeasible. On November 7, 2014, Judge Rhodes approved the city's bankruptcy plan, allowing the city to begin the process of exiting bankruptcy. The City of Detroit successfully exited Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy with all finances handed back to the city at midnight on December 11, 2014.